Correspondence: GMOs and the food scarcity crisis in Uganda

An online campaign in Uganda is warning of the dangers of introducing genetically modified organisms in order to combat a growing food crisis, reports 29-year-old Aishah Namukasa, now living in Germany.

Over the last few years food production has reduced at an increasingly alarming rate in Uganda, a country once dubbed the Pearl of Africa by Winston Churchill in the 20th Century.

It prompted some opposition leaders, including Col Kizza Besigye and Mr Nobert Mao, to lead protests, which resulted in arrests for some of the participants.

In response to the crisis, some members of the public have been agitating for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to boost food security and availability.

This form of production, advanced by huge corporations such as Monsanto, is however not without its problems. First, because the farmers lose proprietorship of their seeds and, second, is as evident in the call for ‘bio’ production in several developed countries.

Dr Oloya, in his regular opinion pieces in the state run New Vision paper, writes extensively against the introduction of GMOs in Uganda, which may leave poor farmers unable to afford the GMO seeds. The petition is sponsored by Naturally Organic Agriculture Harvest (NOAH) and at the time of writing had 951 signatories.

The success of this media campaign has yet to be seen, but it is likely to be boosted by the increase in the use of the internet and other online media sources by Ugandans.

If the government opts out of GMOs and supports farmers engaging organic agriculture as a more sustainable form of food production, as opposed to expensive and almost irreversible GMOs, it will be a considerable success for this online campaign.

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